


Landmine

by Mochas N Mayhem (KoohiiCafe)



Series: Freedom to Love [1]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Kingsman: The Golden Circle Spoilers, M/M, Multi, Rating for Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 13:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12532992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoohiiCafe/pseuds/Mochas%20N%20Mayhem
Summary: “I’m gunna kill you, ya know.”Merlin huffed out a breathy laugh, his eyes fluttering open slowly to focus on the young man sitting at his bedside. It was the first time he’d seen Eggsy, since he’d awoken here in the Statesman sickbay; he kept his voice carefully calm, concealing any emotion other than curiosity at Eggsy’s finally having chosen to visit, and answered, “You wouldn’t. Yeh’d miss me too much.”Eggsy's eyes were dark, angry, swimming with some deep, dark emotion, as he asked, “Do you want to know what it felt like, out there in the jungle?"





	Landmine

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up with one of Eggsy's lines from this story running through my head, and immediately got out of bed to write this, so. It is not beta'd, and is full of feels. Just as a warning.

“I’m gunna kill you, ya know.”

Merlin huffed out a breathy laugh, his eyes fluttering open slowly to focus on the young man sitting at his bedside. He didn’t shake his head, wary of the consequences of doing so so quickly after waking, but rather answered, his voice carefully even, “You wouldn’t. Yeh’d miss me too much.”

“Like I wouldn’a missed ya if ya’d actuallly been blown to bits by a fuckin’ landmine?”

“I _was_ blown to bits by a fuckin’ landmine,” Merlin answered with forced humor; searing pain screamed its way along legs that were no longer there and the scent of burning flesh filled his nostrils. The scent was gone not even a moment later, leaving only the lingering pain. It wasn’t real, there was nothing there _to_ be in pain, but it remained all the same.

“That’s not funny,” Eggsy scowled, and shoved up from his chair. The boy was all tightly coiled and barely contained energy, something like anger almost vibrating over him. Merlin let his eyes slide closed for a moment, blacking out the sight of him.

It was the first time he’d seen Eggsy, since he’d awoken here in the Statesman sickbay with half of him gone; the boy had remained conspicuously absent as Ginger Ale- Whiskey now, the previous Whiskey dead, a traitor, Harry had been right- and Harry and Champ and doctors came and went. Even Tequila, awake from his drug-induced coma and subsequent cryo-session, had been by before his own agent had come to see him, the young American agent seemingly making it a point to drop in and annoy him on a daily basis. The way he had thought Eggsy would have, the way the boy had annoyed Roxy when she’d spent several days in medical after one of her missions had gone awry earlier that year. Roxy who, thank god, had survived Poppy’s attack, who hadn’t been by physically, since she was still in the UK coordinating with all the others who had also survived, but who had spoken with him over the phone. But Eggsy…

The young Galahad- the _only_ Galahad, if Merlin got his way, if Merlin could manage to bully Harry into taking up the mantle of Arthur as he truly needed to, given everything that had happened- hadn’t been by until now.

Merlin sighed and opened his eyes once more to find the other man pacing from one end of the Scot’s small private room to the other, on the opposite side of the room. While he wasn’t sure why the boy had avoided visiting him until now- had been somewhat hurt by that fact, to be honest, although he’d kept that hurt tightly to himself- he certainly hadn’t imagined that their first encounter post-Poppy-Adams would be like this.

“Is there something I can do for you, lad?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at the other man. Eggsy stopped pacing, turning abruptly to face him from across the room.

“Yeah,” he answered, and his voice was hard. Challenging. Merlin’s eyebrow arched higher.

“And what would that be?” he inquired further, keeping his voice carefully calm, carefully concealing the underlying pain of his missing legs; carefully concealing any other emotion other than curiosity at Eggsy’s finally having chosen to visit.

“How about ya stop actin’ like I’m stupid,” Eggsy spat out and, cursing under his breath, stepped forward to swipe a bottle from Merlin’s bedside table. He shook out a couple pills, capped the bottle, then shoved both pills and a glass of water at the Scot. “Ya trained me better than you apparently think ya did- you ain’t foolin’ me.”

“I’m fine,” Merlin answered, refusing the offered medicine. The boy growled in response.

“No you ain’t. Now take ‘em before I make ya take ‘em.”

Given that he _had_ trained him well, Merlin had no doubts that Eggsy could make good on his threat. Grimacing, but not about to suffer through that kind of indignity, he accepted the pills and glass; he downed them quickly before setting the glass back on the table.

“There. Are yeh satisfied?” he asked. Eggsy snorted.

“No,” he said shortly, and stepped away from the bed, looking ready to return to his pacing. Merlin sighed.

“Then do yeh want to tell me what has yer knickers all in a twist?”

“Do ya wanna tell me why the _fuck_ ya thought it was okay to take my place on that mine,” the other man snarled in return. Merlin suppressed the urge to growl right back.

“I did what needed to be done,” he said instead, his voice neutral. “You and Harry were better equipped than I to deal with Poppy’s defenses and get the cure out in time.”

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Eggsy swore, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “I’ve seen ya fight, Merlin, yer just as skilled as I am, if not more so. You woulda’ done just fine against Poppy’s goons, an’ even against Charlie. Maybe _especially_ against Charlie, considerin’ ya _fuckin’ trained ‘im_.”

“Yer an agent, Eggsy,” Merlin answered reasonably. He hoped the painkillers the boy had forced him to take would deal with the headache forming in his head before it bloomed into a full fledged migraine. “I’m yer quartermaster, yer trainer and handler, but I’m not an agent, and we both know it.”

“That ain’t why you did it, and ‘ _we both know it_ ,’” the other man parroted back. “So why don’t ya tell me the _real_ reason.”

“I did what _had_ to be done.” The words were sharp, as his self-control chipped and almost broke. God, he couldn’t do this right now. He was tired, had just fucking woken up, and he _hurt_. “There’s nothing else to tell.”

There was silence between them, for a moment. He had the fleeting thought that maybe Eggsy was done arguing with him then. That maybe the other man would stop acting like a stubborn fool, would stop acting like Merlin had tried to kill him, rather than saved his life. Then he saw it, watched as the boy drew up something within him, drew from some deep well of emotion; he didn’t know what to expect the other man to say, but somehow, he dreaded whatever it would be. Then the boy spoke.

“Then let me tell you something, Merlin. _I love you_. Not as a mate, or a trainer, or a handler. I mean, I _do_ , love like yer all those things, cause you are, but that’s not what I’m tryin’ ta say. I _love you_ , Mer- _Hamish_. I love you, the way you love a man, a person. I love you like someone that I want to be with, always, like someone that I don’t ever wanna be without. Do ya get me?”

There was silence for a moment, as green eyes met green. There was shock written in his own gaze he knew, but he couldn’t look away. Merlin’s jaw worked, and then he was blinking rapidly. He shuddered out a shaky exhalation, struggling to find words, and started, 

“You don’t know what yer sayin, Eggsy. Yeh can’t- you can’t love me like that. You have-”

“Tilde?” Eggsy cut him off, his face set, his gaze stern, refusing any denial. Merlin didn’t answer, not out loud, but he knew his answer was there in his eyes. Eggsy continued, his voice just as firm. “Yeah, I have Tilde. I love her, and like I told her once, in probably the worst way I possibly could have, I want to spend the rest of my life with her. But that don’t mean I don’t love _you_ too.”

“Eggsy-”

“ _No_.” The boy moved then, all but stalking to Merlin’s bedside, and then, shifting what was left of Merlin’s legs aside with a tender gentleness that belied the hard lines of his body language, he sat himself on the edge of the bed. His eyes were dark, angry, swimming with some deep, dark emotion that the Scot didn’t- couldn’t- understand. “Do you want to know what it felt like, out there in the jungle? Realizin’ what you’d done after ya shoved me offa that landmine? Knowin’ that you’d saved my life only so you could sacrifice yer own? And not even cause of anything I’d ever done myself, but cause of somethin’ my _dad_ did when I was just a little fuckin’ kid?”

“Egg-”

“ _I’m not done yet_.”

The words were thunderous, as angry as he’d ever heard from the boy. It was enough to seal his lips, force another shuddering breath from him. Eggsy nodded, hard, as if taking that as an agreement, and continued.

“It was like watching Harry die, all over again. Except this time it was _my_ fault. _I_ was the one who fuckin’ stepped on that landmine. _Not you_. _I_ was the one who fucked up.”

He paused, jerking his head to look away for a moment. Something in Merlin’s chest tightened, _shattered_ , as he realized that Eggsy was trying to hide, was blinking away tears from his eyes; he barely had time to breathe before Eggsy was looking back, pinning him once more with his gaze.

“Then ya gave me hope. For a split second, ya fooled me, had me believin’ that it was alright. That even though I’d gone and fucked it all up, we could escape the blast. Then, next thing I know, ya shoved me outta the way and took my place. You sang that _stupid_ fuckin’ song- _god_ , I never want to hear that song again- and ya went and blew yerself up, and _all I could do_ was keep goin’, keep fightin’, cause that’s what had to be done. No time for emotion, right? Not in the middle of the battlefield, not when millions of lives were hangin’ in the balance. And then the world was saved, fuckin’ _Tilde_ was saved, and _you were fuckin’ gone_ , and-”

The boy was falling apart, turning away from him again, his words broken off as he bit back a kind of sob, and Merlin couldn’t let him. He pushed up, away from his pillows and the bed, up enough to draw the younger man closer, to pull him into his arms, cradle him to his chest. The movement was jarring enough, sudden enough, that it sent further searing phantom pains shooting up his legs, legs that weren’t fucking there anymore, and for once, he didn’t give a damn. The pain was nothing, not compared to what Eggsy needed from him now, what he needed to give the younger man.

“I’m right here, Eggsy; I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered softly, holding tightly to him. Eggsy shuddered, and then broke. He clung to him, arms wrapping around him tight enough to hurt, and Merlin held to him just as tightly in return. He stroked fingers through the lad’s hair, finding tears in his own eyes as he pressed a tender kiss to his temple, as Eggsy burrowed his face into his chest.

He felt something in his chest, in his heart, slot into place, in that moment. Sitting in bed in a strange sickbay, a continent away from the ruined remains of Kingsman, so many of his people killed in the blasts, his legs blown away and gone, but with his heart sobbing into his arms, he felt some missing piece of him- a piece he hadn’t even known was missing- fit itself into place for the first time.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, running and hiding behind a shield, now! >.> Sorry for the pain?
> 
> If you're on tumblr, you can find me at [MakethWoman](http://makethwoman.tumblr.com)!


End file.
